DESCRIPTION: Dental composite restorative materials undergo shrinkage during their placement. When they are light-cured in a confined setting, this shrinkage generates stress at the bonded adhesive interfaces with the surrounding tooth structure. Often this stress is sufficient to break the adhesive interface, causing a gap, which leads to marginal staining, sensitivity and recurrent decay. This project will explore an alternative photoinitiator, which can significantly reduce shrinkage stress. The new compound will be custom synthesized and its light-curing capacity will be demonstrated in a model composite. The polymerization stress of the model composite will be measured and compared with a composite containing typical photo-initiator. FTIR analysis will be performed to demonstrate that the novel photo-initiator. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: The market for dental resoratives is large and highly competitive. Polymerization stress is the leading drawback of this class of materials. An additive such as the one proposed which alleviates this problem without otherwise altering the nature and application of the product would be readily embraced by dental products suppliers worldwide.